It Always Ends in Tragedy
by AmelieLorent
Summary: Your actions define you, your mistakes apprise you, and your choices can kill you. AU. Oneshot.


Title: It Always Ends in Tragedy

Author: Amelie

Summary: Your actions define you, your mistakes apprise you, and your choices can kill you. AU.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to others far luckier than me. There are also a few references to lyrics by Thatch Noir which inspired this story to write itself very differently from what I had originally intended, and also to the poem "Kilroy was Here" by Peter Viereck which I recommend you all read.

Part One: The bitter ramblings of a pessimistic soul

Life is a race against time. We are forever running forward into a foggy abyss where all the roads are the ones less traveled and traps crouch at every turn waiting, ready to spring. It is human nature to be oblivious even to the most inevitable of circumstances. The act of all creation lies in observation. But we are blind to sorrow as we forever pursue the happiness that we will never find. As we travel down that lonesome road forever looking for glittering gold we seal our fate as wandering souls lost until mortality strikes back. We are forever seeking what we will never find for it is too well hidden, buried in time. Consensus dictates our reality, but men were not born to agree to the strange whims of others. Corruptions prevail and taint humanity with its blackened hand and obscurity. Betrayal, abuse, and lies pervade the world and it all just ends in tragedy.

Part two: Your actions define you

He was a quiet boy, always hiding in the shadows, yet somehow attention was always drawn to him as if he was a magnet of an opposite pole from everybody else. Skin the color of coffee with cream stretched tightly over a rat like face. From sunken sockets glared dark eyes, shining with the intensity of the black fire that was the essence of his soul. The shrewd smile that graced his face announced that he had no fears, yet his lightly trembling hands countered that he was petrified. Thick black hair curled from his head like a snake with twisted intentions. Slightly protruding ribs made him seem fragile, but the mere fact that they existed made him seem quite foreboding.

Hearing his voice was a common occurrence, constantly muttering curses at the world. It was an ordinary voice with a slightly rough edge to it, but because it came from him it was very recognizable. His words told stories of drunken rampages and tortured victims, yet truth revealed lonesome nights sitting on his bedroom floor dreaming up fantasies to haunt those who were kind of heart. The younger children feared him but his classmates saw right through his lies and for that, they hated him. It was a deep unexplainable hate that fit right in hand with the cold essence that radiated from the black hole that had long ago sucked up his soul.

He was a paradox, an enigma, a dark secret begging to be told. But, with every turn in his path of life he slew the ones who could have grown close to him. His venomous actions poisoned all around him until he became more evil than poison itself. He was the force that tortured his soul, trapped in the prison he had constructed with his spiteful words and his odious and sinister actions. Blackness is merely the absence of light. The only ones who can be truly dark are the ones who find light to be toxic. Hiding in the shadows forever hunting his innocent pray, light is clearly his enemy. It all ends in tragedy, but for him, it began that way too.

Part Three: Your mistakes apprise you

He threw her against the wall, his red hair catching a ray of fading firelight making it appear as if it was a fire itself. Calm blue eyes had turned stormy, flashing with lightning as they glared at the whimpering girl in front of them. Large lips that loved to smile were stretched thin, curled into the most gruesome grimace she had ever seen. Nostrils flared like those of a bull getting ready to charge. Against the monster that had been unleashed, she was defenseless, her wand lying abandoned on the floor. She mentally chalked up another point to anxiety before his rigid hand shot out and made contact with her face, a resounding slap reverberating through the common room.

He screamed profanities, called her names throwing her against the stone over and over again. But she could not speak. There was naught to say to retaliate against false accusations. Mistakes of the past taught the painful lesson that denying your role in actions of a darker nature only led to trouble. Yet his words held minimal truth value. In this world nobody was ever fully innocent and she included herself in that claim.

Tears pooled in her honey colored eyes and sobs wracked her thin chest as she prayed for salvation to come. Just one more hit with the right intensity could end her life and make all the pains go away. Bushy brown locks clung to her head, a matted mess of anonymity. Knots of waking nightmares clung to the blood of sleepless nights as she wondered again what she had done to deserve this. Before the war Ron had been gentle and kind, but war left no participant unscathed, no fighter unwounded. In the end we all succumb to its sharp claws, each one a double edged sword that cuts both ways.

His accusations were based on false claims from a network of spies that sought to overthrow him, but they were rooted in truth. His sheltered life was quickly crumbling but he was too blind to see it. Her boyfriend of two months used to be gentle, but where a knight in shining armor once stood proud, a blackened shard of his former self now crouched, forced to bear the weight of the cruelties of war. He was the Atlas of modern times, fool hearted enough to relieve Harry's burden and forever convict himself to carry the load of the future upon his breaking shoulders.

How could she fraternize with Slytherins, the sworn enemy of the light? He demanded, his voice taking on a new harsh note. Eternally blind to the hidden good in people, he had become a paranoid being, constantly looking backwards over his shoulder instead of concentrating on that which lay ahead. He was bound to stumble and trip sooner or later, but like always, she had hoped it would be later.

Several hours after that, she awoke to see the dying embers of the fire, barely illuminating the dying embers of what once was her soul mate. War had claimed another victim, but she was already numb to the pain. Slowly rising to her feet to embrace the full force of the headache she crept from the room, out to seek the only one who had ever understood her. Both were victims of minority, both enigmas waiting to be solved.

Part Four: Your choices can kill you

He grinned as she entered the room, the stench of alcohol on his breath. In the darkness his sharp teeth glowed threateningly, but she had long ago set aside fear. Fear lead to weakness and weakness lead down the path of no return, a twisting path strait to the burning fires of hell. People fly with Icarus's waxy wings; the fires of a treacherous path, enough to send them falling, spiraling down into the sea where folksy fishes sip Icarian tea.

His lips met hers with the strength of pent up emotions and stormy frustrations. For them it was never more than sex. He was just an outlet for her negative energy, and she the same to him. She had chosen to cast her lot in with the whores of Hogwarts. A young virgin on the outside she remained, but loners spoke whispers of her alternate identity in the messed up circle of relationships they shared. It seems the death of self esteem might be the greatest tragedy. All this twisted progress reminding her that she is not the girl she used to be. Fraught by division and indecision, we'll always try to fill what's missing through doppelganger tactics.

A sharp pain in her back sent her rolling across the floor, the warm blood of her soul marking where she fell. The blackness of his bottomless core shone through his eyes once more, its intensity burning and it meaning disconcerting. When she became the only one to see past her blinding hate and embrace the boy despite the intricate web of lies he spun, she though she quenched the ominous fire that burned from deep inside of him. Yet, his naked arm revealed a skull with a twisting snake and a glowing rage.

"Zabini?" she questioned, her voice soft and hurting.

"In the infinite abyss you missed a step and that sent you tumbling right into my trap. The dark lord will reward me now and never again will I be mocked for being so cynical and hating. I have the power and you, have an escape from this life you're living. This is the choice you made now there is no turning back. You've been tampering with a dangerous force. Surely you knew that in the end you'd get it right in the ass like everyone else. You're not immune to death my love."

A flash of green light was the last thing Hermione saw, through hazel eyes red with tears and a heart shattered into millions of pieces as she lay lifeless on the floor.

"It always ends in tragedy" he said, and with a swish of his black cloak he was gone.

Part Five: Further bitter ramblings of a pessimistic soul.

In so many ways it's always the same, everyone's a victim though we know we're all to blame. In love and life and all between all these visions bring an end to regularity. Consciousness is kidnapped and synapses derailed, intellect is racing as concentration breaks down. Everything is different from what it appears to be, all of it a victim of hidden identity. The battle was lost but the war still stretches on, an endless struggle between two equally stubborn wrongs. We see the world through fun house mirrors shrouded in gray and discombobulating. Every step we take is one in the wrong direction, but we cannot pause for time is always on our tail waiting for that moment of indecision so that it can strike us down. Try as we might to put up a fight we are powerless against the crimes of our past and in the end they'll corner and catch us. No matter what we say or do to make our lives have meaning and truth, lies, betrayal and corruption prevail and it always ends in tragedy.

a/n: This story was supposed to follow an entirely different path, so if it does not flow well… its because it sort of wrote itself. Also, English is my second language so if I misused a word, please let me know. Finally I'd like to dedicate this story to my ESL teacher who keeps insisting that stories like these prove I don't need her help. Honestly, I'm just there to lose my accent, its half French and half British and makes me sound 100 like a fool whenever I try to pretend I'm Americane.


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